I've also provided real, original DNGs. If you want to see them, you'll need to download them and open them in Lightroom, Photoshop Adobe Camera Raw, Aperture, or whatever in order to see them. Your Internet browser can't see them, although Apple Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) and newer opens DNGs in Preview, but watch it: it's just looking at the embedded JPG.

iPhone and iPod Touch viewers: the original files are so big that our 'pods give up and display a mushier-looking lower-resolution version of these files instead. View the large files a larger computer to see them the best.

In case you worry about dust, I don't. My M9 is no longer new; I've made over 2,000 shots in these first few days, and I've changed lenses at least 100 times trying just about every lens Leica has ever made (reviews all coming). I'd be surprised if I hadn't gotten dust on my sensor.

I shot this in DNG and opened it in PS CS4 ACR. I opened with as-shot WB, which was about 8,000K, and added about 30% saturation in ACR as I opened it. I added about 100% smart-sharpening at 0.2 pixel radius, and saved-as a JPG at quality = 10.

I don't know of any other camera system that can do this for under $30,000. Even if Canon might have more pixels in their cameras, their wide-angle SLR lenses aren't this sharp corner-to-corner. I don't know if the Hasselblad H4D system has ultrawide lenses this good, either. The LEICA has an advantage since its ultrawide lenses can be designed to get closer to the image plane because there is no flipping SLR mirror to clear.

Look also at the detail in the trees, held up against the direct sun shining into the lens.

I think I had the saturation set to medium-high, and WB was set to cloudy.

Look especially closely at the red-blue transitions between the wings and the sky. They are sharp and clean (they are even better in the DNG). The Canon 5D Mark II can't do this: the 5D Mark II's chroma resolution is much less, so red/blue transitions are much softer, even if shot as CR2 raw on the Canon.

The LEICA M9 is so light that I take it running errands, like picking a friend up from the airport while carrying luggage.

There was harsh spot lighting (not lens falloff), so I fixed that when I opened the DNG and saved it as a JPG. I could have done the same with the camera's JPG. You're not seeing miraculous dynamic improvement in the JPG from the DNG; you're seeing hard work in adjustment layers. I used A PS CS2 ACR to open the DNG and save the JPG.

Mouse over this to see a crop from the equivalent of a ten-foot (3 meter) print from each of the M9's in-camera Basic 18MP JPG versus when I got when I opened the DNG in PS CS2 ACR.

Mouse-over to compare DNG. This is a 200% pixel-by-pixel enlargement, similar to a 10-foot wide print. For those of you on iPod and iPhone, here is the version from the DNG:

The biggest help is to use these links to Adorama, Amazon, Calumet, Ritz and J&R when you get your goodies. It costs you nothing and is a huge help. These places have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.